Obama’s panicky pander on immigration

posted at 10:12 pm on June 20, 2012 by Karl

The establishment media will tell you Obama’s new non-enforcement of immigration law is a political masterstroke. “It’s a trap!“ for Republicans, it is written. A flash poll proclaims it’s overwhelmingly popular with likely voters. The WaPo’s Aaron Blake, while adding more nuance than most along the way, stresses the conventional wisdom:

President Obama’s announcement Friday that he would stop the deportation of some 800,000 young illegal immigrants who were brought to this country by their parents isn’t likely to increase his share of the Latino vote much.

But there is still plenty for him to gain: turnout and enthusiasm in a community in which both are severely lacking.

***

And initially at least, it looks as if his announcement Friday has done some good.

A new Latino Decisions poll of Hispanic voters in five key states (Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Nevada and Virginia) shows 49 percent say his announcement makes them more enthusiastic about him, versus 14 percent who say it makes them less enthusiastic.

Any polling done so closely to a major decision is likely to exaggerate the bump to some degree, but it’s certainly helpful for Obama (no less because Republicans are tripping over themselves in search of a response).

Although Obama’s announcement is undoubtedly part of a campaign strategy of pandering to and mobilizing the Democratic party’s clients, the conventional wisdom is likely wrong.

As RCP’s Sean Trende explains, Latinos are underrepresented in swing states and after accounting for Florida’s idiosyncratic Cuban Latinos, we are really only talking about Colorado and Nevada. The Guardian’s Harry J. Enten crunched numbers for the states mentioned in the Latino Decisions poll, confirming that Colorado and Nevada are the key states. Enten looked at a better-than-best-case scenario for Team Obama. Noting that in 2008, only 50% of eligible Latinos voted, compared with 64% of the overall population, Enten calculated the gain for Obama if he had registered and turned out Latinos at the 64% rate. He found Obama would have gained only 0.64% in Colorado and a mere 0.37% in Nevada.

Moreover, Enten notes that the GOP candidate would actually win some of those votes and scholars think Latinos will make up the same percentage (or less) of the electorate as they did in 2008. In addition, Trende observes that Obama’s decision potentially alienates other voters. In short, the likelihood that Obama significantly benefits from the new immigration policy is slim at best.

But what about the polls showing how popular the policy is? Here, the establishment is ignoring the concept of intensity (as it often does). As Enten notes, Latinos are more concerned about the economy than immigration, just like everyone else. He later quipped on Twitter:

Producing a popular policy on a topic on which no one is voting is akin to treating a gun shot wound with ice cream. Tastes good, does nada.

Moreover, I tend to agree with Ed Morrissey that — especially given the very marginal possible benefit — they “fired this gun too early.” Why? Ed implied that Team Obama is getting panicky about Romney’s campaign. In particular, I would note it may have been intended in part to preempt Romney’s Thursday speech before the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials in Florida. Others have speculated it was intended to blunt the impact of an anticipated Supreme Court decision on Arizona’s immigration law. And perhaps one factor might be Team Obama’s desire to give the media a story about their stumbling candidate going on offense. But the reality is that Obama’s latest pander is neither a masterstroke nor going on offense.

This post was promoted from GreenRoom to HotAir.com.To see the comments on the original post, look here.

It’ll be great and the masses will feel so good about themselves and helping out the less fortunate, until their neighborhood turns into an ethnic enclave and their kids are living in their basement because they can’t find a job.

A new Marquette University poll shows Obama easily beating Romney in Wisconsin by a 49-43 margin. This is a very good polling outfit that nailed the Walker recall race. For whatever reason, Obama is very popular here and Romney is very unpopular here.

Announced waaay too early in the campaign to make the needed impact in CO and NV, and didn’t do a thing for him in national polls, Gallup and Rassmusen. Now it all might be undone as Fast and Furious finally begins to receive widespread notice via the Holder-in-contempt debate in the House, and the general public learns for the first time how many Mexicans were killed as a result of Obama’s gun running operation. Which he’s invoked Executive Privilege in order not to disclose how.

I want to watch this man self destruct. He is becoming so desperate; he must know that he is a failure and that the only way he can possibly win is to throw the crap on the wall and see what sticks. Pander to gays. Pander to Latinos. Pander to blacks. If he thought there were enough to swing the vote he would pander to gay, bi-racial (black and Latino) pandas.

OBAMA ENACTED THIS NEW POLICY BY FIAT BECAUSE – AS A PERSON WHO WAS BORN IN KENYA AND THEN BROUGHT TO AMERICA AS A BABY AND THEN RAISED IN INDONESIA AND THEN BROUGHT TO THE USA AGAINST HIS WILL – HE EMPATHIZES WITH THEM.
HEH.

In general, I agree with you. My concern is based on those folks that only get their news from MSM. Some of those folks hear Fast and Furious and think, “Wasn’t that the horse that won the Kentucky Derby?”

I hope that the contempt proceedings, and subsequent fallout will force the media to disclose the ugly truth. *sigh* Yeah, I know.

The Barack Obama Campaign just throws handfuls of feces at the wall and sees what sticks — then they run with it. it is — literally — all they’ve got.

And it is beautiful!

FlatFoot on June 20, 2012 at 10:16 PM

Think about little Bammie’s campaign team, -they have been working at it full-time since mid-2007. The campaign never ended. How much longer can they keep it up? Little Bammie has no one else to turn to. Axleshaft is looking like a dog that’s been beat down once too often.

Obama is a bad politician. A good politician, like Bill Clinton, would have come out and gotten completely behind that idiot Rubio’s DREAM ACT II. Obama should have called Pelosi and Reid and told them to make it happen. Called a big conference to announce how this is an issue that shows how real bipartisanship can be made to work. Do it for the children. Doctor up the bill, make it more liberal, more like the original DREAM ACT. Rubio and the Republicans, caught in a trap of their own making, wouldn’t dare make a scene and risk torpedoing their own legislation. Obama could have pretty much taken credit for the whole thing, and emerged as a real hero to his party.

Meanwhile, Obama causes a huge gap to open up between Romney and a significant chunk of his own party. If Romney caves and endorses the legislation, he alienates his base, as well as moderates and working class Dems who don’t like the illegal situation any more than conservatives do. He looks like a flip flopper and a weakling. If he stands firm, he also looks weak, afraid of his own base, an insensitive troglodyte who is on the wrong side of history.

Instead, Obama, afraid of Rubio for no apparent reason, cut off Rubio’s balls and left him hanging. Romney, who I posit is not pleased with Rubio and his shennanigans, is then able to finish Rubio off by leaking that he is not being vetted for VP. Obama just did Romney’s work for him.

I hope that the contempt proceedings, and subsequent fallout will force the media to disclose the ugly truth. *sigh* Yeah, I know.

4Grace on June 20, 2012 at 10:33 PM

Media will be forced to report, however briefly and however they attempt to bury it (see the ABC News/Diane Sawyer thread), at least the “events” (Holder held in contempt by the House, Holder sued by the House in civil court, Obama defends Holder, etc.) and whatever minimal explanation or “context” they think they can get away with in order to maintain any credibility at all.

But the reportage will raise as many and more questions than it answers and some people, including some to whom Obama is pandering, will start to ask around, or look for other sources of information. Slowly, even if only at the margins (where Obama was hoping to make his gains with his directive), the full story will leak out.

And although the media and political sides of the story intrigue me, in the end this is about justice for the slain… and the malefactors. As long as the House gets those documents and intensifies the investigation, what ABC does is of no consequence anymore.

If we haven’t learned one thing, we should learn this one thing: whatever the “overwhelming” meme is as pushed by Leftmedia where the Democrats and especially Obama is concerned, that’s the one meme that’s not true.

Obama’s Rose Garden announcement about this mess was last Friday. By Saturday morning, the Leftmedia was peppered with overtly joyous, madly grinning, evervescent Leftwing people all gleefully rejoicing about Obama and how his announcement was great…

So it’s an obvious ploy by the Left to get something started. And that the media is trying to pathetically continue to harp away on this as if Obama now represents some tidal wave of happy-happy-joy-joy-amnesty, we should all pause and consider the source/s.

Romney is very smart to remain aloof from this and to keep on his track as he’s going, especially since he’s looking far more Presidential than Obama is.

A new Latino Decisions poll of Hispanic voters in five key states (Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Nevada and Virginia) shows 49 percent say his announcement makes them more enthusiastic about him, versus 14 percent who say it makes them less enthusiastic.

Where those same people polled about Barry’s DOJ supplying arms to the Mexican drug cartels so that Mexican citizens could get murdered? Wonder how much “more enthusiastic” that should make them?

I’m not sure about that. Yes, his ego cannot take the thought of losing. But, his ego also assures him that no other person could do a better job. Also, Hillary (or anyone else) is not under the spell, nor is she beholden to Valerie J. or anyone in the Chicago machine. They need someone (Obama) that they can influence/control.

A new Latino Decisions poll of Hispanic voters in five key states (Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Nevada and Virginia) shows 49 percent say his announcement makes them more enthusiastic about him, versus 14 percent who say it makes them less enthusiastic.

OT: Please keep Pastor Norm Friedmeyer in your prayers. He is one of my closest friends and a Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod pastor. He is seventy five years old and fit as a fiddle normally, but Saturday he was trimming branches and a limb knocked him off his ladder and pinned him, breaking over half his bones. His intestines have ‘gone to sleep’ whatever that means. He is truly a godly man and a very conservative and orthodox Christian and American gentleman. keep his dear wife June in prayers as well. Thanks and God Bless…

I’m actually a little surprised his amnesty was somewhat limited in scope and pretty late in the campaign. I thought they would give themselves at least a year to get all the illegals registered to vote.

Down here on the border. hispanics are getting really at pissed at barryOs administration. The WH seems for forget the ICE agent killed was named Jaime Zapata and his injured partner Victor Avila, were both hispanic men. Their attorney’s filed suit last week on behalf of their families. Border Patrol is all over the news fuming about the Brian Terry documents.
I don’t think his pandering to latinos is gonna work this time.

OT: Please keep Pastor Norm Friedmeyer in your prayers. He is one of my closest friends and a Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod pastor. He is seventy five years old and fit as a fiddle normally, but Saturday he was trimming branches and a limb knocked him off his ladder and pinned him, breaking over half his bones. His intestines have ‘gone to sleep’ whatever that means. He is truly a godly man and a very conservative and orthodox Christian and American gentleman. keep his dear wife June in prayers as well. Thanks and God Bless…

OmahaConservative on June 20, 2012 at 10:54 PM

I … I don’t know what to say. Was he using a chainsaw and how tall was the ladder?

I’m beginning to figure out that most of the established posters say their “nighty-nights” on the “Comment of the Day” thread, but just to be different, I offer mine here. Good night, Allah P. Good night, everyone. Don’t forget to put the cat out.

Everyone I know is appalled. And very fearful for their children. Great. A fine combination of criminals who can commit crime at will and merely cross the border to be free of gringo justice, or jobs that will go to foreigners instead of Americans.
Thank you Obama.

Neil Boortz’s believes Obama will remove himself off the ballot this fall for some medical reason. I’m starting to believe this. At the end of the day, liberalism must survive. Hello, Joe Biden campaign for President.

I think the Kardashian Administration pulled the trigger (metaphorically speaking) too early on this one… The elephant in the room is the Executive Privilege on Fast & Furious… A proper ad campaign on THAT will do more damage than a tsunami…

Let me see now. I am an illegal immigrant wanting to stay in this country permanently. Obama is gonna give me a two year green card if I identify myself to the government, tell them where I live, how long I been here, nearest of kin. All I have to do in return is vote for Obama. Then for the rest of my life I gotta live in fear that Obama is not going to throw me under the bus like he did Rev Wright, his grandma, and oddles of other unfortunates. I don’t think so Poopsie.